Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Born To Shimmer

We're born to shimmer.
That's what I believe. We were all created with something special about us. A truth, a light, a love and a purpose. We're created as a promise to the future  - the coming of something wonderful and amazing.
Yet, sometimes we don't get there.
One of my favorite songs is Shimmer by Shawn Mullins.
"We're born to shimmer
We're born to shine
We're born to radiate
We're born to live
We're born to love
We're born to never hate..."


But sometimes we are taught to hate. We're even too quick to do so.
Just yesterday, when the news broke about the arrest of a suspect in the murder of a 15-year old girl, I learned that people within an hour of the news were already posting hateful words on the suspects' Facebook page.
I certainly don't condone what he's arrested for. I assume the police got the right guy. I hope they did. I hope this kid gets the justice he deserves. I'm disgusted and saddened by what he might have done. But to go so far as to post hatred on his page, I won't do that. I'm better than that. I'm stunned that so many others are so quickly motivated to do so. Isn't stooping to such hateful actions just answering the kid's evil with more?
I know people were saddened to learn the girl wasn't found alive. I'm sure many were emotional and even furious about the waste of such a life and senselessness of the whole thing. We should be angry about the violence and senseless loss of life we see every day.  But is demonstrating our own hate, really the answer?
Wouldn't it have been better to show empathy for the mourning family? Or show appreciation to the efforts of the wardens and police who worked so hard in this case? Or support the searchers that volunteered to help find this girl? Or bond together as a community and rise and grow from such tragedy? There were so many other options, positive steps to take amidst the sadness - rather than resort to more hatred.
One of my favorite books is The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. In that book, Joshua Chamberlain talks about man and equality. He says he believes that every man has a divine spark and that is what makes us human.
I think we all have that divine spark. That is what makes us shimmer. But too often people dim that light inside. We groom the hatred, anger and bitterness inside. Soon that overwhelms the love that is our true center.
I see it everyday. It's in our politics. It's in our work place. It's in the day-to-day happenings of our lives. People are living their anger and bitterness and expressing their hatred. Who knows what circumstances have bred those feelings. It has become easier to show our displeasure and express our anger than it is to show our care and love.
That's not how we were created. That's not the core of who we are as humans. That's not our purpose.
It is too easy to forget that and live in that darkness and not feel the shimmer in us all.
But as we dispatch this anger and hatred and shake demons that haunt us, our hearts become less hard. The shine begins to radiate again.  That's what is in our nature. It's what we were born to do. We can make a difference rather than make a stink about something.
That's what our instinct should be - to shimmer, shine, radiate, love and release the hate.

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